Archive for August, 2007

Spinach

Written by: adekun on 6 August, 2007 1:00 pm - Filed under: food — No Comments »

Not really grown much leafy greens yet, spinach is easy and can be grown any time of the year. First seeds got sown 06-Aug.

Tags: garden

Garlic golfball

Written by: adekun on 2 August, 2007 11:01 am - Filed under: blog — 11 Comments »

The garlic along with the onions has been hanging around outside to cure. Yesterday the remaining garlic was checked, cleaned and boxed. There was a spell of exceptionally humid weather which got to a couple of cloves; it could be they were bruised. A few of the onions which were a little soft on the outside previously, have since dried out.

Of the four Aomori garlic heads harvested, this one front right, is quite small comparatively, about the size of a small onion and strangely spherical. Behind, a regular head, sans a mouldy clove and a tiny Kabocha pumpkin my wife was given.

Peeling back the paper, there is just the one clove, somewhat bigger than a golf ball. I guess it could of done with another month in the ground.

I noticed that I had pushed the minimal watering regime a little too far, the leaves of the sweet potatoes were drooping and some of those on the tomatoes plants were browning. A check into the soil confirmed this. Typhoon Usagi (rabbit) is predicted to pass tomorrow afternoon. It appears to be gaining momentum. Although the rain would be welcome, I expect the tomatoes and cucumbers will suffer the same early conclusion as last year.

Tags: garden, garlic, weather

Composting compost bin

Written by: adekun on 1 August, 2007 9:45 pm - Filed under: blog — No Comments »

Last year I cobbled together a reasonable sized compost bin out of old wood. The sides were made from some reed blinds destined for the city incinerator. Sadly over the past year my toil has been turning into compost. With the help of a few unhandy spade jabs, probably a lot faster than the contents.
I always thought you can never have enough compost; fortunately my neighbour has and offered me some. It seemed like a good time to reuse and recycle – again.
There was some leftover wood from when the mother-in-law commissioned the sister-in-laws fiancé to replace the tatami floor with wood, whilst we were away. I rather very much liked it before. The scrap was soon to be collected for the dump.
A day was spent the previous week, savaging, sawing and hammering. Without any long nails, an hour was taken to straighten and sharpen some old rusty ones.

The slide-up front panels are some old sliding cupboard doors, butchered to fit. As luck would have it there where five 40 litre bags of weeds, ready to go into the left bin. The compost I took went into the one on the right. No work of art, it didn’t cost anything and I’m very pleased with it.

Tags: compost, garden